


That's Just the Concussion

by AERCHIVE (aerClassic)



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Concussions turn Hongjoong into an Angst Bucket, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, implied background SeongSang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 00:04:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21290396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerClassic/pseuds/AERCHIVE
Summary: Okay, but Yunho's fist connecting with his skull actuallyreallyhurt.
Relationships: Jeong Yunho/Kim Hongjoong
Comments: 15
Kudos: 411





	That's Just the Concussion

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to [wcnderlands](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wcnderlands) for being a helpful soundboard for this even though it ended up going in almost a totally different direction WHOOPS

Never in a million years has Hongjoong been more _ aware _ of the pulse of blood in his veins than in _ this _ very moment.

As soon as the cameras stop filming and the staff starts wrangling wayward members to remove their mic setups, Hongjoong rubs the tender lump slowly forming beneath his hairline with a wince. It’s not large or bleeding or anything, but the place where Yunho’s fist accidentally connected throbs with the beat of his heart hard enough that it feels as if someone has a jackhammer chiseling at his skull right behind his eyeballs. Hongjoong imagines a tiny man in a hard hat working diligently with heavy machinery to create a crater in the space between follicles because that’s what this feels like.

Yunho is still clowning around with San and Mingi in a nearby corner, hand cupped over half his face on breathless laughter, instead of checking on Hongjoong—on whether or not he had a _ goddamn concussion _ thanks to Yunho’s fist in freefall.

Seonghwa, free from the wires threaded through his shirt, rubs a soothing palm down the knobs of his spine from behind. “Your boy ignoring you?”

“Yunho is not ‘my boy’, hyung,” Hongjoong whimpers from a mixture of mortification and eyeball throbbing pain. “And it’s fine, the kids are busy having fun.”

Seonghwa hums. “If he’s not your boy, then how’d you know I was talking about Yunho specifically? Riddle me that, genius.”

“Shut up,” Hongjoong mutters under his breath while his ears no doubt flash the neon red of a traffic stop. “Leave me alone, my head hurts.”

They weren’t really a Thing, capital t and all, but Hongjoong thought they’d be close to it—sooner rather than later. They were in that awkward lead-in to becoming a Thing even though they’d spent nearly four years being giant question marks to one another and everyone knew it. A constant will they or won’t they the dorm and a few of the staff had pooled money on a bet.

Looking at Yunho now, laughing into San’s chest while Mingi mimed another forceful swing of an imaginary sword, Hongjoong isn’t sure. Maybe he’d spent too long thinking they had time to spare that he’d missed his chance entirely. Over the sprawling matrix of city blocks leading from city to city to the outskirts of towns that made up Korea, there is only one Jeong Yunho he’s ever felt more than as a passing dalliance and now they’ve missed each other like ships in the night.

A staff member approaches with an ice pack and a sympathetic expression furrowing their eyebrows together. Seonghwa leaves him to it with a bracing pat to his shoulder and a gentle, supportive rub to his chest.

Hongjoong’s head _ hurts_.

**\---------------**

It doesn’t get any easier to deal with on the van ride home—both the sharp pain in his skull and his realization that the…whatever he had building with Yunho is probably over. There’s no other explanation for Yunho’s simple, “Sorry about that, hyung, I guess I don’t know my own strength huh?” followed by a lackadaisical half-wave on his way to climb into the backseat between Wooyoung and San.

“Yeah,” Hongjoong says—several seconds later once he’d finally parsed Yunho’s voice, except Yunho is already crowding into San’s space to look at his phone and already Hongjoong can taste the sour bitterness of rejection. 

When he blinks, little points of light dance along his vision that he can’t seem to squint passed. Something on his contacts, maybe.

Seonghwa nudges him, face a study in concern. “Hongjoong-ah, are you sure you’re alright? You look pale.”

“Just tired,” Hongjoong waves him off. “Nothing a nap or seven won’t fix.”

Seonghwa purses his mouth. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Only the one,” Hongjoong sighs and wonders if Jongho is the only other adult in this group. “You can stop flipping me off now.”

His hyung grins wide as he lowers his middle finger. “Had to make sure you don’t have a concussion, boo.”

Hongjoong may be in pain, possibly with hidden head trauma, but he’s not so incapacitated that he can’t kick at Seonghwa’s shin with a hissed, “Don’t call me ‘boo’, fuckhead.”

“Why are mom and dad fighting?” Mingi sobs directly behind him. “Does this mean you’re going through with the divorce? Think of the children!”  
  
Hongjoong slouches down in his seat. "You're all about to be a bunch of orphans if you're not careful."

**\---------------**

Over dinner he watches Yunho smack Mingi’s fingers away from his plate, allows San to steal bites of meat from his personal stash, and something inside of him just—snaps. Maybe it’s his last braincell giving up or the way his vision is still sort of blurry around the edges in pain, but Hongjoong is staring down the trunk of the elephant in the room and he’s suddenly too tired to tiptoe around it. 

Fed up with everything and everyone in this room, Hongjoong slams his hands against the table’s edge hard enough that the silverware and their glasses rattle from the force. All conversation stops. Mingi drops his hold on Yunho’s hand trying to steer the last bite of rice into his mouth. Jongho quits inhaling his second helping of meat, cheeks bulged out with pork and cabbage. Even Wooyoung and Yeosang, heads bent together in deep discussion while Seonghwa played on his phone between them, look up with mirrored expressions of shock.

“You know what? I thought I was over it, but I could have had a _ concussion _ today and no one except Seonghwa even _ cared _ enough to find out if I was alright,” he rages quietly while across from him Yunho’s face pales and his eyes widen comically. His head and his heart take turns vying for who can hurt the most when San reaches out to clutch at Yunho’s shoulder as a show of support. “I’m going to the studio. Don’t bother me.”

He hears Yunho ask, “Wait, did I really hit him that hard?” but by then the door is closing and Hongjoong lets the pain and the hurt and the emotional punch in the dick lead him to his tiny hole in the wall studio for some much needed downtime.

**\---------------**

Mostly, Hongjoong ends up spending his time in his cramped studio with the lights off and his laptop screen a voidless black feeling like a monumental asshole.

**\---------------**

It’s late when Hongjoong finally stops pretending he’s angry—because he isn’t and hasn’t been, not really, this entire time—and makes the short trek from the KQ Produce offices back home to the dorm. Seonghwa is already a formless lump in the top bunk so Hongjoong navigates the closet for a set of clothes to sleep in and finds the edge of sheets in his bed by sense memory alone. 

Hongjoong is barely slipping close to sleep when he hears the door to his and Seonghwa’s room carefully click open and shut, feels another body insert themselves into the space next to him beneath the blankets. Long fingers and longer arms slide intimately over his belly to pull him backward into their front.

“Hey,” Yunho whispers into dark quiet of the room, mindful of Seonghwa trying to sleep above them. “Hyung, about earlier—”

“Don’t,” Hongjoong interrupts before Yunho can really get the self-sacrificial apology out but still unwilling to look him in the eye just yet. He’s said a lot in the last six hours he’s not entirely ready to face head on. “You don’t have to be sorry, I was just—I was just being a dick.”

Warm breath blows over the curve of his neck as Yunho sighs. It’s relatively cold in the dorm but Hongjoong still feels as if he’s standing directly in the middle of a furnace, embarrassment clawing its way up his neck and over his ears in miniature heat waves. “Still though, I accidentally hit you really hard and I should have been more concerned about it,” Yunho mumbles into the back of his neck. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Hongjoong says. There’s a tiny divot in the wall in front of him he can just make out in the dark and he keeps his gaze focused there to keep his mind carefully blank—totally void of the feel of Yunho’s body pulled in tight to his back. “Why are you _ here _ though? Isn’t San going to miss you if you don’t go back to your room?”

The tips of Yunho’s fingers dig into the skin just above his navel hard enough that Hongjoong jolts from the unexpected pressure. 

“Roll over,” Yunho demands in growling baritones against his nape.

“No,” Hongjoong imagines he can feel the air pressure and the heat ratchet up another notch in the space between them. He’s unsure if it’s from fear or the low sizzling burn of desire centered beneath Yunho’s arms clenched around his waist. “Don’t wanna.”

Yunho stifles a laugh, Hongjoong knows because he can feel the twitching in Yunho’s chest vibrating against his back. “Stop being a jealous coward and face me, Kim Hongjoong.”

“Bitch, I am your _ hyung_! Respect me for once,” Hongjoong hisses between his teeth, still staring at the crumbled hole in the drywall like it’s going to save him from this whole interaction. He can’t even remember how it got there—Seonghwa trying to stab him in his sleep and missing maybe. “And I’m not jealous.”

“I’ll respect you the most if you roll over and look at me,” Yunho cajoles totally ignoring Hongjoong’s denial. “Come on, I just want to see your face.”

Hongjoong debates grabbing on to the edge of his mattress in case Yunho tries to flip him. “You see my face every day.”

They both jump when a pillow lands with a hard smack against the side of the bunk above them along with Seonghwa grumbling in a voice throaty from sleep, “Hongjoong, either face Yunho to kiss and make up or both of you go the fuck to sleep. I am_ exhausted_!”

“Sorry, hyung,” they say in near tandem though Yunho decides to tack on, “My bed is empty if you want to escape.”

Seonghwa groans. “Depends, are you two going to be quiet anytime soon?”

“Probably not,” Yunho admits. As if to punctuate the statement, his hands wander up from the relative safety of Hongjoong’s stomach up towards his chest and Hongjoong nearly swallows his tongue on a sharp inhale from the sensation. 

Seonghwa pretends to gag, takes the steps leading from his bed to the floor in record time with a dark, “Both of you are going to owe me for this.”

“Thank you hyung,” Yunho calls out softly at his departure, “We love you!”

Hongjoong can’t see, but by the way Yunho hides a snort against his head he’s fairly certain Seonghwa just flipped them the bird or made that nasty, sneering face that says ‘I’m judging both you and my life choices right now’. The door closes with a pointed clack, though still soft considering the time of night. 

“I’m still not going to roll over just because he’s gone now, you know that right?” Hongjoong whines into his pillow. “You can’t make me.”

Yunho scoots closer until any amount of space between their bodies is nonexistent. The furnace has turned into the liquid pool of magma at the bottom of a volcano. Hongjoong is pretty sure he’s about to start fear sweating through his sleep shirt at any moment.

“Hongjoong-ah,” Yunho rasps against his ear.

Hongjoong shivers. “Stop. That’s rude.”

“Maybe, but you’re into it,” he can feel the sly grin forming on Yunho’s mouth where it’s pressed into his skin. “Seriously, hyung, please just look at me for five seconds and then we can pretend this never happened and go back to sleep.”

“Five seconds?”

“Five seconds,” Yunho agrees.

“No funny business?” Hongjoong fidgets with a loose thread in his comforter.

Yunho traces the shape of a heart over the center of Hongjoong’s chest. “None.”

“Fine,” Hongjoong musters the courage to shift within the curl of Yunho’s arms until they’re face-to-face, almost nose-to-nose or mouth-to-mouth if he shifted his head just right. “What.”

Yunho is sweet faced and open. Even in the dark of the room Hongjoong can make out the attractive flush in his cheeks and the way he’s delicately biting at his bottom lip. “You have less than zero reasons to be jealous over San or Mingi or anyone else, you know that right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hongjoong tries. “Can we go to sleep now?”

“Nope,” Yunho pops the ‘p’ a little obnoxiously. “Stop pretending to be an idiot about this and be a normal hormonal boy for once.” Yunho’s hands are huge and tender sweet when they shift to cup Hongjoong’s cheeks. His voice doesn’t even waver when he says, “I’m sorry about today. I’m sorry about accidentally hitting you and making you think I didn’t care about it. I’m not sorry that I like you.”

Hongjoong says—something. Sort of. It’s nearly nine tenths a whoosh of breath over his teeth and the remaining tenth the sound a cat would make if someone stepped on their tail.

Yunho snickers at him. “Man up and say it back.”

“I lo—like you too.” Yunho’s hands tremble against his cheeks and Hongjoong cannot find it in himself to blame him considering it feels like there’s a miniature earthquake centered in his chest turning his insides to jelly. “_Obviously_.”

“Obviously,” Yunho whispers back like a secret. “How’s your head by the way?”

Hongjoong honestly had forgotten all about it but now that Yunho mentions it, yeah, it still sort of throbs in intermittent aching jolts. “Still tender.”

“Mmm.” Yunho pulls him forward that last annoyingly empty inch. “Want me to kiss it better?”

“Yes.” Hongjoong answers immediately, a little shameless and a lot needy. His mother had always stressed to him the importance of being polite so he adds, breathlessly, “Please.”

And Yunho does. A quick, gentle kiss to the worst of the hurt before he trails down to press his mouth against Hongjoong’s forehead, then his eyelids and cheeks, trails over the tip of his nose and the corner of his mouth in butterfly soft skin to skin contact. The earthquake has turned into an 8-point disaster quaking from the center of his chest to the very tips of his fingers and toes. He’s got Yunho’s shirt between the clenching and unclenching of his hands but it doesn’t seem to work as an anchor, not when Yunho shivers and sighs over the fan of his mouth.

“Yunho—”

“Let me guess,” Yunho starts, voice finally as unsteady as the hands quivering against Hongjoong’s neck, “Your lips hurt too?”

Hongjoong laughs, jittery and unhinged, “Wow, you’re really smart.”

There aren’t any sparks or fireworks or lightning strikes when they finally come together but it’s still _ nice_. Comforting—like finally coming home after an extensive tour abroad or three plane rides back to back to back. Yunho’s nose is a little cold where it nudges into his cheek but his breath is warm and weighty when Yunho backs away to sigh against his mouth.   
  
“Better?”

“Getting there,” Hongjoong says throatily, overwhelmed by feeling so much all at once—both emotionally and physically. “One more?”

Yunho presses in once, quick, before leaning away again with a tiny laugh. “You can have all of them.”

Finally, after hours of pain and years of uncertainty, Hongjoong’s head stops hurting.

**\---------------**

Later... 

Saturday night, Seonghwa stands over the group of them with his arms crossed and deep circles darkening the space beneath his eyes. "Can we collectively agree to stop having late night confessions if it's going to kick someone else out of their bunk?"

Hongjoong watches San and Wooyoung shoot guilty glances in each other's direction from his perch in Yunho's lap, painting his pinky nails pearly white while his dongsaeng slash boyfriend holds the bottle open and steady for him. "Aw, leave the kids alone."

Seonghwa rounds on him with a seething, "I was speaking to you, dickhead."

"Me?" Hongjoong yells in mock offense. "What did I ever do to _you_?"

"First I get kicked out of my own room so you could make out with Yunho"—Hongjoong benevolently ignores the high five Yunho shares with Mingi over Jongho's head—"And then again when San shoved your boytoy out of their room so he could do whatever the fuck with Wooyoung right under our noses."

"We were just talking," Wooyoung mutters in his defense.

Seonghwa scowls, a deranged tick starting under his left eye. "Yeah, and I'm the Queen of England."

Mingi gasps theatrically with a palm clutched to his chest. "Your Majesty! You look absolutely _ravishing_ this evening."

Before Seonghwa can exact his revenge—which is probably just murder at this point—Yeosang quietly adds, "I don't see what the big deal is, just come sleep with me next time."

Hongjoong gleefully witnesses the rage drain out of Seonghwa's expression to be replaced by ruby red mortification. Seonghwa's voice even goes all high and pitchy when he asks, "What?"  
  
"You heard me," Yeosang says smug. 

Jongho leans into the gap between Yunho's chest and Hongjoong's shoulder while Seonghwa has a verbal aneurysm in Yeosang's face. "Are we going to have to redo room assignments now?"

**Author's Note:**

> it's not an ash fic original unless there's late night confession cuddling in someone's bunk ✌️
> 
> ~ Ash


End file.
